Cultures of London - by Charlotte Grant & Alistair Robinson (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book places migrants at the centre of London's story, discussing and celebrating their contribution from the medieval period to the present day.

Book Synopsis

One of the most international, culturally diverse cities in the world, London's social and cultural history is steeped in centuries of migration. This book places migrants at the centre of London's story, discussing, exploring and celebrating the contribution that they have made to the city from the medieval period to the present day.

Structured geographically around five sections, each of which addresses a different area of London (North, East, Central, South and West) this book features essays from a wide range of contributors, some of which examine how migrants have shaped particular places (socially, architecturally, politically), and some of which analyse how they have been imagined and represented within those places and the city more widely. The inclusion of image-led case studies exploring particular buildings, monuments, artists or institutions offers local examples of how migrant communities have made their marks on London in different ways. Using a mixture of in-depth analysis of texts and cultural artifacts with more synoptic, historical essays, the book builds an overview of the contribution of migrant communities to the history and cultures of London. Taken together, these essays paints a rich, complex picture of cultural London, featuring well-known figures like Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Van Gogh in addition to lesser-known figures like Ignatius Sancho, a former slave and writer, and contemporary novelist Hanan al-Shaykh. Topics addressed are rich and varied, from an examination of Chinese aesthetics of an artefact at the British museum, to an exploration of representations of black sex workers in 18th C London.

Published amidst the fraught politics of Brexit, the revival of nationalist sentiments in the global north, and the Covid-19 pandemic, this book serves as an accessible and timely reminder of the enormous cultural contributions that migrants have made to Britain's capital.

Review Quotes

This pathbreaking and extensive volume brings together a wide range of authors from academia and beyond to investigate the role and lives of migrants throughout the history and geographical extent of London.
Panikos Panayi, Professor of European History, De Montfort University, UK

About the Author

Charlotte Grant is Senior Lecturer in English at NCH London, UK. She has a background in literature and visual culture, having taught previously at QMUL, King's London, and Cambridge, where she held a lectureship in literature and visual culture. She has published on Eighteenth-Century literature and culture, edited a collection of botanical writing and co-edited Imagined Interiors and Women, Writing and the Public Sphere.

Alistair Robinson completed his PhD at UCL in 2018 and became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, before joining NCH London in the summer of 2019, where he is now Lecturer in English. He has published on nineteenth-century literature and culture in the Journal of Victorian Culture and the Review of English Studies, and is currently preparing his first monograph for publication.